The country has seen heated political debate in recent years and the same is true inside the company. Disagreements have at times gone too far.

In 2017, Google fired James Damore after one of his posts to an internal board triggered furor. Damore stated that women are biologically less suited to engineering than men. He also said Silicon Valley discriminates against conservatives.

That touched off bitter arguments within Google, and many now-banned words made their way onto company message boards, two former Google staffers told the Register.

Some in Silicon Valley believe Google is reaping what it sewed. The culture of frank discussion has its limits and for too long Google had very few limits.

“This is work,” Patty McCord, Netflix’s former chief talent officer, told Business Insider not long after Google released its behavior guidelines.

She added that if it was her, she might say: “This is not home. You are not a child. We don't take care of you. You own your career... We can have fun and we can celebrate and do all the happy s--t but we're not everything to you. Google kept the life-after-the-dorm around way past the shelf life."